Palestrina, Byrd, and Lionel Richie at Oxford

4

March2011

A photo of Lionel Richie (below) takes Andrew Sullivan back to his student days at Oxford.

One of the great privileges of attending my Oxford college, Magdalen, was its choir. Most evenings, you could enter the chapel and be taken into another world of spirituality – from Palestrina to Byrd. The choir was, however, er, a little campy at times. And I won’t forget the day I arrived early and heard them sing their version of “Hello” by Mr Ritchie, at the conclusion of a rehearsal. One lame lyric was made somehow better by being rendered by boys and men in vestments over the medieval candle-lit chapel…